3 Luxurious Beach Hotels With High-Gloss Fashion-World Pedigrees

Start planning your winter escape now to one of these oceanside resorts which are perpetually filled with photographers, models, editors, and designers.

A “beach hotel” is one thing—and, let’s admit it, they’re pretty much a dime a dozen. They range worldwide from the lower-end, hostel-type, backpacker haunt to the ultra-luxe, five-figures-per-night, infinity pool-clad wonderlands for the rich and discreetly famous. But there are a few beach hotels that break the beach hotel mold. Yes, the water is lovely and the drinks are strong and the sun is shining, but this select bunch boasts grand and glorious histories, complete with halcyon days and memories of eras long bygone. It’s because of these storied and myriad backgrounds—and complementing modern amenities, of course—you (especially if you’re someone who loves style and fashion) can’t help but feel especially relaxed upon arrival. They don't connote, really, a feeling of barefoot chic so much as they exude a sensation of familiar comfort in a fantastic place. That mix—good vibes, good bones—is hard to come by.

After recent travel to beach hotels around the planet, I can 100% say that the three properties detailed below my favorite places in the world, hotel or otherwise; seaside inns with big, stylish legacies, where, most importantly, you kind of feel like you’re at home (or rather, your dream home).

The Ocean View Club

Harbour Island
The Bahamas

The Ocean View Club, located on tony Harbour Island is, to my knowledge, the only hotel that combines bare-bones homey-ness with super high profile clientele. “In many ways we’re an anti-establishment hotel,” says Ben Simmons whose mother founded the property over forty years ago. “There’s a self-service bar, no room service, no phones and no TVs in the rooms—it’s a very laissez-faire approach to hospitality. At it’s core, it’s about simple luxuries; a decent meal, a nice view and a story to tell.” But Simmons also remembers the hotel’s glitzy past: “I recall the photographer Gilles Bensimon drawing pictures of me being stung by wasps and snakes—which, in hindsight, were kind of mean, but also pretty funny. When he was kindergarten-age, model Elle Macpherson told rebuffed his marriage proposal and Vogue was always ruining his playtime on the beach. (“Apparently we were disrupting a photo shoot.”) In fact, it was just that kind of photo shoot—mostly for fashion editorials and catalogues—that accounted for a majority of their business prior to the financial crisis of 2008.

Now, Simmons, his wife, and their young son are often spotted around the property, as are their many dogs. The furniture in the lobby has a hyper-shabby chic appeal, with hanging lamps fashioned out of old clarinets and trumpets. The rooms are each individually designed and curated (one even has a palm tree sticking through it). Truly, though, besides the vistas of pink sands and bluer-than-blue water out front, the best takeaways at Ocean View come from its honor bar. A little notebook with your name rests on the wooden shelf; you’re responsible for filling in whatever you drink. An all-time favorite travel moment in recent years for me was sitting there for hours on end with my brother and a good friend, drinking wine and just chatting into the night. That felt like true luxury, like true relaxation.

The Standard Spa,

Miami Beach, FL
United States

I’ve often heard the Standard Spa and Hotel on Belle Isle in Miami Beach, Florida described as “the best place on earth.” At 100 rooms, the hotel is quiet and familiar—guests, often famous, lilt through the patios and the gardens in their square-terry bathrobes, soaking up the humidity. Something about the layout of The Standard becomes partially hypnotic; frenetic Miami Beach seems more miles than meters away. The property was originally built in 1953 as the Monterey Motel. In 1960, a man named Norman Giller remade it into the Lido Spa, adding a main front building, the façade of which still exists today. Giller essentially crafted his project into a spa with rooms, predating the Canyon Ranch phenomenon that’s so popular now. Josephine Baker even performed at the Lido, but only after insisting that the audience be desegregated. Which is amazing. In the 1980s, it was converted to a retirement home (fantastically, and perhaps shockingly, one of the retirement home’s residents is a member of the Standard Spa today).

When André Balazs purchased the site in 2004, he enlisted interior designer Shawn Hausmann to attempt a radical redesign. Hausmann reportedly went to Denmark for three weeks to study mid-century design, which explains the splice of modern with a tropical, Floridian sense of décor and color. The lobby alone has standout examples of legendary design, including Hans Wegner’s J16 Rocking Chair from 1944, and an Alvar Aalto Tea Trolley designed in the mid 1930s. Aesthetics aside, there’s a sense of community at the Standard that feels singular; it’s intimate, sexy, relaxed and healthy.

Crispy Soloperto, Director of Guest Relations and an employee of the hotel since Balazs took control, says: “It is so evident how comfortable guests are when we see them lose their ‘civilian’ clothes only to wear their robes their entire stay, lounging in the hammocks or swinging in the garden. They are our family and they come back home to us. I love it!” Soloperto forms such strong relationships, she has even served as a wedding officiator to two former guests. “I let them know I might cry when I read the vows. But if they could handle tears when I married them, then I was their gal. I was honored.”

The Royal Hawaiian

Honolulu, HI
United States

The Royal Hawaiian, located on Honolulu’s Waikiki stretch, opened to enormous fanfare on February 1, 1927. The Pink Palace, as it is known, is a distinct shade of sun-kissed blush, and its legacy is breathtaking. Ironically, it was first built with a majority of the rooms facing inland, looking up towards Oahu’s mountains. Cruising (there was no air travel back then) from the mainland took a while, and by the time guests reached Hawaii, they were sick of seeing the water. Now, though, the ocean-facing rooms command the highest rates. The hotel became a must-see for the wealthy and well-traveled—names on the register after The Royal Hawaiian’s opening include the Rockefellers, the Fords, the duPonts, Clark Gable, the Shah of Iran, and many more. During World War II, the hotel become an R&R station for sailors, located just miles—but a world away—from Pearl Harbor. In the years that followed, grandeur returned—Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio even stopped by on their honeymoon. Now, The Royal Hawaiian, as part of the Luxury Collection under Marriott, feels just as enriched by those glamorous ghosts of the past. Chief Concierge Wendy Nagaishi told me a particularly lovely story: “We had a guest donate his mother’s Steinway—she was an accomplished pianist. We said, ‘are you sure?’ and he said yes. His mother had always heard the music twinkling from the Royal Hawaiian as she walked past on the beach, but never had the chance to play there.”